


Enemy of my Enemy (Part 3: Epilogue)

by Embleer_Frith0323



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Loss, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 05:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2179260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Embleer_Frith0323/pseuds/Embleer_Frith0323
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this epilogue, Barbara recounts her own experiences and seeks peace and closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enemy of my Enemy (Part 3: Epilogue)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daisymagick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisymagick/gifts), [wendythewang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendythewang/gifts).



> Per request. :-) 
> 
> This is an epilogue to the two-parter, Enemy of my Enemy. I treated it as a vehicle to sort of wrap things up, and as asked, provide some closure for the characters. It's written from Babs' perspective, and will cover things like the death, the aftermath, and what becomes of Damian. Rose's future is also explored a bit. :-)
> 
> Also--the bits with Damian I based a lot more around the Son of Batman film versus the Batman and Son graphic novels. 
> 
> It needs edited--some redundancies, grammatical and spelling errors I missed abound. Also, pretty sure I've been spelling Connor wrong... Apparently, it's spelled "Conner." How I missed that is beyond me, whoops. I'll fix it one of these days when I'm not overcome with laziness. ^_^ (Which I finally got around to doing.)
> 
> I hope that you enjoy and that it wraps things up okay, and equally that it doesn't make a wreck out of the first two parts! ^_^
> 
> (The excerpt is from Watership Down, by Richard Adams, 1972. Heck if I remember how to cite something properly, but it came from page 474 of my copy. xD)

It’s been all of a day at most since I looked at the contents of this box.

I keep it under my bed, a sort of secret testament to days long gone. Some days I reach under the bedskirt to pull the box out, pop the lid off and go through it, comforted by what it holds, more than three times in a day’s span. Other days I’m at it only once. (I consider those one-time days a serious accomplishment.) I think, though, the longest I’ve gone is maybe forty hours. And that was because I was away at a convention.

It required, needless to say, a massive effort of will not to bring it along.

The box is full of old affects that aren’t mine, but Dick’s. Photos, notes we passed in class, ticket stubs, a peacock feather mask, things like that. He wasn’t much of a pack rat, but he did hold onto things that had some sort of memorial value to him. The peacock mask, for example, was one his mom wore during one of her last performances. I love looking through the old, faded Polaroid photographs and pictures developed from those one-hour photo booths of his parents and of him when he was a kid, and reading the notes we had written back and forth. Shuffling through the ticket stubs holds no end of fascination for me—finding myself privy to which events meant enough to him to make it into the little box of his treasured memories. 

Also inside the box are letters, that I put there, after I came to inherit the pieces that remained of his life.

One of them is the letter that he had written out to me in the event of his death, as all of us on the team and League have done for our loved ones. I have letters written. 

And the second is one that Dick scribbled just before he died, addressed to someone named Damian.

I, of course, read mine that he had written out, comforted by the sight of his familiar handwriting. I have long since committed its words to memory, but I can’t seem to keep myself from reading it almost every night—like a silent bedtime story.

This letter made out to Damian has sat in the box, opened, but untouched, for years.

Dick had startled me one morning when he had, with astonishing clarity after days of not making even an iota of sense, asked me to please bring him a pen, paper, and an envelope. When I asked why, he said he just had something he needed to take care of.

I had grown accustomed (not adjusted—no way in hell or on earth was I adjusted) to his disjointed behavior over the past several days, and I, assuming that this was likely another splendid display of his brain backfiring and spiraling into God only knew what reaches of Neverland, leaned over to lay a hand on his forehead. “What is it, hero?”

“I should have done it a couple of days ago,” he mumbled. “I need to do it now. …Please leave it be until the right time.”

“The right time?”

“You’ll know.” 

He took the pen and paper when I brought them, and over the course of several tedious hours doggedly wrote out this one letter, even though he dropped the pen umpteen times, grew frustrated and swore graphically when he had trouble keeping the papers steady, and dozed off for a while right in the middle of composing it. I had respectfully kept my eyes off of what he was writing, and helped him fold the paper and shove it into an envelope when he came to and finished up his task. On the back of the envelope, he wrote out, in painstaking chicken scratch, “Damian.” 

I took this letter, peered at it, and, looking down at him, asked, “Dick, who’s Damian?”

His eyes fluttered closed. “…He likes milkshakes.”

“What are you talking about, babe?”

But he was completely dead to the world by then, his jaw almost comically loose, his face turned into the pillow beneath him. I frowned, and took the envelope from his hand to place it in the bag that hung over the arm of my chair. I wondered why he had never mentioned a Damian to me before. 

After he died, and although I had promised that I would leave it until the right time, I _did_ open the letter to this Damian person when I could not, for the life of me, find anyone by that name that Dick might have known. I wasn’t really sure what Dick meant by the “right time,” either. I thought that maybe the contents of the note would provide a clue to this person’s identity, and I could finally deliver the letter to him, right time or no. 

However, I was only _more_ confused upon reading the inscription:

_“Damian,_

_Forgive me a cheesy moment during which I pop off with a loose rendition of an old quote. It’s all I can think of to say._

_‘We never spoke, but I hear you. We never met, but I know you. You never knew me, but I love you.’_

_Please be good, little bro._

_-Dick”_

I folded the letter back up, placed it in the envelope, shoved it into the box, and pushed the whole thing back under my bed. Then, I grabbed Foxy from where she was snoozing, and just cried and cried into her fur. I clutched at her all the more tightly when she tried to worm away. This letter was just a painful confirmation that Dick was completely off the reservation at the time that he wrote it. 

And now, I’m holding it, turning it over and over in my hands, trying to find the oomph to get up off the floor. This night has been one of the most mindblowingly weird I’ve had in a long time—and it seems that Dick wasn’t nearly as off his nut as I thought when he composed this letter. 

I lift the envelope, catch the scent of the paper, the sight of his handwriting, wobbly, but still his, filling my eyes. 

It really takes me back, and I sigh.

I don’t want to remember Dick as his “Perpetually Invalid” self, as he called it. It’s the same reason I haven’t read the letter beyond the one time; why I only dwell on the photos and notes in the box. Artemis has the only photograph of him from those days; the one of him lying on his back in the bed that he would die in, our cat curled up against his side, just as she remained until the last. I looked at the picture only once, and haven’t since.

Re-reading this letter would be like looking at that photograph. To revisit the emotions it brought with it, I feared, would send me into pieces a la the Big Bang, and just like the Big Bang, I’d be made into a scattered Something Else and never go back to being the whole, original me.

I don’t really want to remember the day that Dick died, either, or the days, weeks, months that followed, or preceded. So naturally—I catch myself recalling, and thinking on all of it, every single day.

Just like the letter. I don’t want to look at it, but I’ve never thrown it out. 

Dick was gone before he was gone—if that makes any sense. His semi-lucid, morphine-stoned half-talk had devolved into mumbling all kinds of gibberish (sometimes in different languages and computer code, occasionally mixing them up, and oftentimes speaking words of his own invention, Shakespeare style.) It was genuinely humorous, but the kind of funny that makes you feel like a total jerk for laughing after the fact. He slept probably nine-tenths of every day, mostly unresponsive and parsecs away from any place in this universe. Then, he completely stopped recognizing us—he didn’t even know me, or Bruce. We both tried to elicit _some_ form of recognition from him, only to have him blankly stare, and go back to muttering to himself. M’gann couldn’t even link us to him psychically—his consciousness was literally in pieces. 

“Well,” I said heavily after a day or two of repeated efforts, listening to his babbling, “at least he’s keeping himself entertained…”

My close friend Robin, one of the hospice nurses, chuckled a bit as she tended to some care-related things. I sat, wondering at how a part of me childishly still thought, and held out the hope, that maybe this was _not_ reality, but some prolonged hallucination brought on by an enemy, and that this whole thing was one brain blast away from being over. Bruce left the room in stony silence. I decided to follow him, to see if maybe I could get him to talk (I had worried about him from the time Tim and I turned up Dick’s diagnosis hacking into Gotham General’s systems, but at this point I was _really_ becoming concerned—Bruce looked about as stretched and dragged as old, dried, brittle elastic), and found Tim hovering outside Dick’s bedroom door.

I paused, and he awkwardly shifted his weight.

“Are you going in?” I asked after a moment, holding the door open. 

“I don’t know,” Tim said. “…He doesn’t even know who I am.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, during which I tried to think of something bolstering to say. 

“…So where’s Cassie?” I asked after a pause, instead of offering any words of comfort or wisdom, because I honestly just didn’t have any.

“Team business,” he said. He grimaced. “Looks like I’m on my own.”

I nodded, and continued after Bruce. I sympathized— _really_ sympathized. Approaching Dick without a wingman present was difficult at that time. It made me all the more grateful for Nurse Robin’s support. Being in a leadership position, I found that a lot of the younger team members looked to me to kind of give the occasional pep talk, and try to keep morale high. Frankly, I still have no idea how I lent them any support while I, myself, was popping seams left and right, and dropping broken bits of myself all over. Robin, and my parents, were the only adhesives that kept me halfway assembled.

On that topic, my mom and dad did stop by and look in on Dick (well, and me…) pretty frequently. I knew on my mom’s end, she wasn’t real happy about my decision to drop everything in my personal life so I could take care of my sick re-fiance. My dad understood, and was his usual kind, mellow self when he came to visit. Mom, on the other hand… She just couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that, not a year after losing the use of my legs, I would consider taking on such a backbreaking job (ha, ha.) I personally thought she was being really stupid, overprotective and unfair, but now that I’m a little older, looking back, I _do_ understand how she felt, and why. But at the time, I wasn’t seeing it. I just saw her as her customary den monster self, looming over and casting a shadow across everything I tried to do.

“Well, I’m here to pick you up,” she said, when she came for her first visit.

I had been there barely more than a day.

_“Mom.”_

“Listen, honey,” she had said, taking me aside a little ways, where she mistakenly thought Dick couldn’t hear her. “I know he’s sick and you want to support him right now, but you don’t need to be moving in here and taking care of him. That’s what hospice is for.”

I had shaken my head. “Mom. Please.”

“Barbara, you’re still healing. You’re still adjusting. I understand that you want to take care of him, but things are different now. You can’t do the things you used to. _You_ need to be taken care of, too, you know. So… Who’s going to take care of you while you’re here?”

Livid and insulted, I was about to say with sarcasm, “Foxy,” when Dick chimed in.

“I’ll take good care of her, Mrs. Gordon,” he said, lying propped in bed and looking skinny, pale, and two-parts dead with the breathing tube looped over his ears, which appeared uncharacteristically large under his thinned-out hair. He looked wholly incapable of taking care of a pet rock. “Don’t worry.”

Mom looked over at him, and visibly softened. He had been a truly incredible caregiver after I got hurt—and that didn’t escape anyone’s notice, my parents’ the least of all. She worried at her lip for a moment.

She heaved a sigh.“Oh, all right. But, Babs… Make sure you’re taking care of yourself, too, okay? Don’t try to do everything yourself.”

I grinned, positively beaming at her. “I won’t, I promise.”

She smiled. “We’ll come check in here and there. On both of you,” she said.

I leaned forward in my chair and hugged her. “Oh my god, Mom… Thank you thank you thank you. I love you so much so much so much.”

“Love you, too, sweetie,” she said, then, extricating herself from my embrace, walked over to Dick. She cupped his cheek, and kissed his forehead. “And I love _you,_ by the way.”

“Love _you,_ Mama Thelma,” he said. “Like I said. I’ll take real good care of her.”

Obviously, he couldn’t really take care of me. But that was all right. Dick had tirelessly cared for me after I was shot, and had taken some of my more rotten behavior in his stride, as I reminded him when he expressed any embarrassment or regret (which he did, a _lot,_ when he still had his faculties in order.) Sickness, health, better, worse, I told him.

He smiled.

Then, he asked, again, about Stephen. I told Dick not to worry about him, and that I was there because I wanted to be. When I broke off the engagement with Dick, I did it because I thought, with all seriousness, that he was trying to atone for some of his juvenile iniquities by sticking by me when I was hurt. And… because I was embarrassed, and ashamed, and I didn’t want him to get stuck taking care of me because he felt some moral compunction. Now that our roles were reversed, I got it—finally. Granted, I’d always known, deep down, that Dick didn’t take care of me when I needed it, or quit dragging his feet, just because he was trying to expiate for his guilty things. But being in his position just rendered this truth inveterate. And confirmed my own regret. 

There are a few parts of that time spent caring for him at the manor in his old bedroom that I remember with some happiness. Bruce, our friends on their caregiving “shifts,” and I read to Dick every afternoon, played some video games, or marathoned different television series via streaming. Sometimes, in the evenings when it was just us, I’d haul myself onto his bed so I could cuddle up to him while we watched TV or listened to music. In his somewhat okay moments, we’d kiss a little—sometimes a complicated task with the cannula. 

He was in a lot of pain by then, though, and even though I’d like to tell you that he adhered to all of the standards and conventions, kept his chin up, and maintained his good humor to the last, of course he didn’t. It doesn’t matter who you are. Bad pain is bad pain, and cancer pain is _very bad pain_. When he wasn’t curled, crying, around his abdomen, he was still strained and in so much discomfort he couldn’t sleep. I stayed up with him, all night, for days. When he caved into the opioids, he quieted down, and finally slept. Mentally speaking, he was still fairly present at first. I hoped things might plateau at that point. But the cancer (or The Asshole, as Rose called it, and probably a more appropriate name) got the better of him fast, dragging him away into that hinterland of not recognizing and not knowing that comprised his final days. 

His last morning, I woke up unexpectedly in the guest room I was using in the manor. I hadn’t taken myself there. I saw that I was still fully clothed, and wondered who brought me to bed. I didn’t sleep much during that time, so even though it was early, I hauled myself into the Chair of Doom where it stood like a vulture skulking hungrily at my bedside, went through the pain-in-the-ass motions of getting dressed in new clothing, did some freshen-up type things like comb my hair and brush my teeth, and headed into Dick’s room. Just a normal start to the day. Hospice was downstairs, talking to Bruce (likely my mysterious Sandman.) It was maybe half-past seven by then, meaning they wouldn’t have been there long. Each morning, I took it upon myself to rouse (well, sort of rouse) Dick, partly to try getting him to eat, but also for my own reassurance. 

This morning, he didn’t wake. 

I poked him. I nudged him. I squeezed his hand, shook his arm. I flicked him. I lifted his arm and dropped it. All the while, I repeated his name, until, as my fear went from a trickling of disquiet to a rushing wave of dread, I screamed it at him. I lifted his whole upper body and shook him with a vehemence that nearly dragged me out of my chair, seeing as how I was without my legs to use as an anchor for my weight and his. 

_OhmyGodthisisitthisisitthisisit—_

I frantically fumbled at the intercom for hospice, Bruce, Alfred, God, Albert Einstein, anybody. When the door opened, Bruce pushed past me and shouldered the nurses that came with him aside, and repeated my own motions with greater violence until Robin gently, but firmly, took his elbow, and, with some calming words, led him out of the room. I just bawled powerlessly by his bed. While the other nurse, Heddi, was working on Dick, Robin moved me out into the hall with Bruce. 

“Hang in there for one second, okay, hon?” she said, squeezing my fingers, then my wrist. I grabbed her hands, clutching them tight.“Just one second.” 

I didn’t answer, just sat with the tears streaming down my face in rivers and falling in my lap as I dragged wet air in through increasingly clogged nostrils. A building, choking, awful panic rose in my gullet, fueling the sobs, pushing through the hand that crushed its grip around my lungs, my heart, my gut.

Bruce gripped my shoulder, an action that might have surprised me into silence at any other moment, but this time, kept the rising panic down, and loosened the hand inside. I covered his fingers with mine, and cried.

Robin, when she came back out into the hall, told us that Dick probably had a day or so left in him, and Bruce, his face pinched into a taught, harsh web of worry lines and shadows of fatigue, took it upon himself to call the League, and team. He left Dick’s civilian people out of it, for then.

That day, and evening, I spent in a surreal state of only half-being. Somehow, things moved both in slow-motion, and in fast-forward. The Justice League, and Young Justice, are like (scratch that, _are_ ) a close-knit, loyal, dedicated family, and as any close-knit, loyal, dedicated family does, they came to the manor to look in on him, and some stayed to stand vigil, where they would remain until the end. M’gann, Artemis, Conner, Kaldur, Zatanna. Dinah, Ollie, Barry, Clark. They stayed, all night. Hospice turned over to new third shift nurses, for the first time. 

I pulled myself from my chair that night and onto Dick’s bed when the final visitors filtered out of his room, and lay beside him, my head resting not on, but against his chest, so I wouldn’t interrupt his breathing. I laid my palm on his belly. Feeling the slight, but perceptible, rise and fall of his respiration, both from his chest and abdomen, reassured me that he was still there, and gently rocked me, a cradle of sorts, until I unwittingly fell asleep. I was only occasionally dimly aware that people came into the room from that point.

When I awoke, I realized it was because everything was still—completely, utterly still, and equally silent. I lifted my head, and saw that Dick lay, his chest an unmoving, hollow shell in his white tee-shirt, his body flaccid and heavy under the blue sheet. His jaw was slightly askew, his lashes clean, black strokes over his cheeks. The sunlight from the window cast a latticework of shadows across his motionless, quiet form. Foxy sat upright, looking over him, her tail occasionally swishing.

I knew. 

It was 7:02 AM.

I numbly pulled myself into my chair, pressed the intercom button to call in hospice, drew the cat onto my lap, and waited.

Bruce followed behind Robin and Heddi, back on duty after the previous night, as they came wordlessly into the room. Robin briefly laid a hand on my shoulder, then, producing her tools, she bent down over Dick’s silent shape. 

Her back blocked my view, but by her motions, I could see that she checked for a pulse, both at his jaw, and his wrist. Heddi copied her motions, then stepped aside. Robin took the earbuds of her stethoscope and placed them in her ears, then pressed the diaphragm against his chest, and listened for sixty sluggish, reverberating seconds, that Heddi kept track of. 

Robin straightened, and removed the buds from her ears. Her eyes met mine with an expression that fenced my breath. “…He’s gone, honey.”

I sat, suffocating, waiting for the relief that I thought I’d feel when he finally passed, but feeling only the same twisting, sickening panic that I had felt the previous day. The relief never came.

I thought I had cried myself out the day before. But apparently, my body could manufacture tears out of nothing—and plenty of them.

Robin leaned down and pulled me to her with an arm around my shoulder, whispering, “I’m sorry,” even as Bruce ducked Heddi and approached Dick’s bedside. Through the veil of tears and the unsteadiness of my own sobs, I observed Bruce as he wordlessly stroked his foster son’s hair, and, with a corner of the bedsheet, reached up to wipe away the line of saliva, still damp, at the side of his mouth. Then, brushing the dark locks away from the pale forehead, Bruce bent, and kissed his brow, then his cheek. 

“Bruce,” I said, my voice hitching and barely audible through my own sobs. I extended an arm to him.

He turned, not looking at me, and left the room. 

I _really_ got crying right about then.

Robin wheeled me downstairs, where the Leaguers and team members who had stayed the night waited. Artemis and M’gann got to me first. The lot of us ended up in an absurd football pile of entangled arms and mingling lachryma, until we all kind of faded into an exhausted mass that sat in the parlor with little to say. 

My parents picked me up when the logistics were all dealt with. I rode in the car with Foxy in my lap in silence, leaning against the window. When we got home, my dad brought me inside, then pulled me from my chair, carried me cradle-style upstairs to my room, and, still holding me, sat down on my bed. My mom joined us a few minutes later, sitting down, and enveloping her arms around the breadth of us both.

I remembered one of the first days I got back to the house after I was released from the hospital when I was hurt. I decided that I was just going to up and walk, and boosted myself up by the arms. Of course, I went down facefirst on the wooden floor of my room and cut my lower lip to shreds. Dick had come in right about then, and in a heartbeat was at my side. After checking my face, he just held me, his arm supporting my back, his other hand cupping my head, for a long, long time. He then lifted me exactly as my dad had, in the cradle hold, to carry me into the bathroom, where he took care of my face for me.

I buried my face in my dad’s neck, and fell asleep in my parents’ arms. 

The days following were an insomniac haze of planning, scheduling, condolences, and all sorts of other insufferable crap. I was stuck helping get his funeral arrangements in order, since he, to my surprise, had listed me as his sole beneficiary and executor of his will. Eventually, Dinah and my mom, having mercy on both Bruce (who was a walking disaster) and me, took over together, and did all of the work for us.

Darkseid suddenly disappeared—and left no indicators as to his whereabouts. The Light withdrew into a silent corner of inactivity, and it’s like Apokalips just imploded on itself without its deranged tyrant kicking about and bossing its denizens around. Thank God. The risk to the welfare of the world aside, it also meant fewer team duties. 

Two days before the viewing, I got a call from Tim.

“What’s going on?” I asked, turning over in bed, eliciting an annoyed sound from Foxy. It was two in the afternoon and I hadn’t moved from under my sheets or showered since I got back from the manor, some days before, and I didn’t care. 

“Rose took off,” he said. “Again. We’ve tried calling, we’ve tried texting, we’ve tried tracking, we’ve tried social media—we can’t find her _anywhere._ ”

I sighed. Bruce and I weren’t the only ones reacting to what had happened.

“Is there anywhere in particular she goes when she’s stressed out? Where was she the last time? Did you try Dick’s apartment?” I asked. “…You sure she hasn’t been kidnapped or anything?”

I still hadn’t dealt with Dick’s apartment, I realized, and at the horrible idea that Rose might have been taken by an enemy, I drew the sheets over my head, with the phone resting against my ear. 

“Yeah,” said Tim. “Pretty sure. And we did check Dick’s place, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in her apartment, either. Everyone’s out looking for her now, but nothing doing.”

“Um…” I rubbed my forehead, considering. “The circus?”

“Hang on.” I heard Tim telling Eddie to go track down Haly’s Circus and see if Rose had turned up there. “Eddie’s on his way to deal with that. Can you think of anywhere else?”

“Well… She’s a teenager, right? Where’s her mom?”

“No idea. Rose never talks about her.”

“Okay. Well, her dad’s in Star City. Maybe check there?”

“All right. But… You should probably come with us.”

I heaved a sigh. My scalp itched under my greasy hair. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, Babs, I’m serious. The only people that can probably talk her out of wherever it is she’s hiding apart from Dick are Artemis, Eddie or you.”

I felt like strangling Tim in that second, but I agreed to join them in their search—Dick would have come back from the grave mummy-esque and killed me if I didn’t, but that aside, I also think I’d do the job for him. 

Slade Wilson kept a house in Star City, known only to Rose, Dick, and myself. Well, and now Tim and Artemis. We Zeta’ed to the city, made our way to the house with the aid of a car borrowed from one of Ollie’s storehouses (jamming the Chair of Doom into the back of the sedan was a real trip), and knocked on the impressive oak door.

When Slade answered, his jaw squared, and his posture went tense. Tim held up his hands, and Artemis and I followed suit to indicate that we were unarmed. 

“We’re not here to make any trouble,” I assured him. “Just… Rose took off, and… we need to know if you have any idea where she is.”

“I might,” he said, crossing his arms. He appraised us, studying our casual clothing. “You’ll owe me a favor in the future, though.”

“Fine,” I said. “If it’s in reason, fine. Just—where is she?”

Slade stepped aside so we could enter. “She’s upstairs. Although…” He frowned at my chair. “I’m not sure how _you_ plan on getting up there.”

I scowled as Tim helped me get the chair over the threshold and into the entryway. “I’ll wait down here, I guess.”

With the others on the second floor, Slade and I remained in the foyer in a grumpy, _not_ amicable silence, until he suddenly broke it.

“Obviously, I heard about Richard. Nightwing,” he said.

I didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”

“I understand he was your fiance?”

“Yeah.”

“So you were part of the cause of my daughter’s jealousy and heartache. Prior to his dying, obviously.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s all you have to say about it.”

“Yeah.” 

“Your mentor has certainly rubbed off on you.”

“Listen, fuckface,” I snapped. “I’m not here to talk to you about my feelings. I’m here to get Rose out of this hell hole. Got any problem with that, I’m still perfectly capable of looping your balls up over your head—you know, like a cap?—whether I can use my legs or not.”

He gave me a mirthless half-smile. 

“Well,” he said, “if she wants to go, I won’t stop her. And I want you to know—I’m sorry for your loss.”

I stared at him, trying to figure out if he was having me on.

“Are you screwing with me right now?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I’m not. The viewing is on Friday?”

“Why do you care? You feel like coming just to gloat?”

“No. I wish to pay my respects to a worthy adversary.” He paused, and shook his head. “…It boggles the mind to think that his own body was his most dangerous enemy, in the end.”

I looked away, glowering. No way was I opening up to Slade Wilson. 

“Viewing’s on Friday,” I said irritably. “You can figure out the rest of the details yourself. But I swear to God if you show up there with any of your goons from the Light, you’re all going to straight into the ground with him. Got it?”

He raised the brow of his one eye. “I thought you operated on a strict no-kill policy.”

“Crashing the funeral of one of ours might change some minds,” I said.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” he said, then turned as Rose came downstairs with Artemis and Tim. 

“Friday,” said Slade.

“Whatever topples your tower,” I muttered.

Rose hugged him, and exchanged a word or two. Yuck.

We left.

Sitting on the front stoop of my house with Rose some time later, she heaved a sigh and looked the very picture of a student waiting to get the ruler. She wouldn’t make eye contact, or even look in my direction. I studied her from my chair. Her hair hung around her shoulders like a big, silver cumulus cloud. She wore a pair of pajama shorts, black and sprinkled with a multi-colored print of stars, a yellow tee-shirt advertising Soley, and flip-flops. We matched, from our half-assed clothing to our mussed hair. I had brought her to my house to have a chat as team leader with her at Kaldur’s behest, but I didn’t have any intention of confronting her on vanishing. I tried thinking of a way to lay her fears to rest; however, she spoke before I could.

“Sorry to run off on you guys like that,” she said. “…For the second time. God, Dick would kill me.”

I shook my head. “No, he wouldn’t. He’d just be glad when you turned up safe.”

She was silent for a moment.

“Dinah’s having Jaime and Eddie play the songs at the viewing service,” she said. “Obviously… They want me to sing.”

I looked over at her. “Don’t you want to?”

She shook her head. “I don’t really feel like singing. There, or… anywhere else, really. But… I guess since I was programmed with the voice, I have to perform for everybody, just like a robot with no feelings.”

I nodded. “Bruce has to give the eulogy. And I _know_ he doesn’t want to.”

She nodded. “Yeah. To be honest… I don’t even really want to go. Not a real big fan of funerals. Or wakes.”

“Me, either.” I looked up at the clouds. The weather had finally cooled—a little. The clouds were thick and orange-yellow in the early evening sky. “Well. I know you don’t feel like performing for everyone. Or going. But… Neither do the rest of us. And… You know he loved your music.”

She smiled a little. “Yeah.”

“So… Maybe just perform for him, you know?”

She scuffed at the brick of the stair beneath her feet with the toe of her sandal. “…Yeah, okay.”

“What are you going to play?”

She shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Aimee Mann, maybe. Sleater-Kinney. One of those might work.”

“You should play the Hokey-Pokey,” I suggested, deadpan. 

She chuckled a bit. “Yeah. Suits him way better.”

I reached over, and took her hand. We sat like that, just silently sharing grief, until the sun went down. Artemis came by. We ate dinner with my parents. We had an old-school, girly slumber party. 

When the topic of Mal and Karen’s wedding came up as we chatted while watching movies, we agreed to all go together, comprising each other’s plus-ones—and called ourselves the “We Ain’t Got No Boyfriends Club.” We maintained that it was highly exclusive and existed to ensure that none of us would ever have to attend a social engagement alone. 

That night, I finally slept, not to mention ate, for the first time in days.

The viewing was held just before the funeral. My mom helped me get ready, styling my hair, which had grown just past the bottom of my neck since I’d gotten it cut “boy short” that January. She helped me apply some makeup.

“Here,” she had said, coming into my room with her big bag of cosmetics when she caught me using my own in front of my vanity mirror. “My stuff is a little more heavy-duty.”

I tried to smile, but couldn’t. I’d grown accustomed to the feeling of nothing beneath my waist, but it was strange, feeling that sensation of numbness spreading all across my body. My arms felt like mismatched spare parts—shoddily connected and only partially functional. Just to pull my face out of a blank, set stare left me feeling over-tired. 

I let Mom brush powder over my face, and I borrowed her “super-waterproof” mascara. I leaned forward in my chair so she could tie the sash of my black dress. I gazed at the jewelry I’d laid out—earrings, necklace, bracelet—and paused. Dick had gotten the set for me for my nineteenth birthday, partly why I had chosen them. 

“Oh, those are so beautiful,” she said warmly, looking at them. “He had good taste.”

I eyed the engagement ring. He _did_ have good taste. 

“He had a lot of money,” I corrected her, the first joke I’d made in days. I put the earrings in, and Mom helped with the clasp on the necklace and bracelet. 

“Oh—speaking of that, the insurance company called for you again,” she said. “…You know you have to talk to them at some point.”

“I don’t want the stupid money, Mom.”

“Well, he obviously wanted you to have it, so…”

“Isn’t it technically still Bruce’s money anyway?”

“No. Dick was over eighteen. I’ve already gone over that.”

“Guess it’s time for a new TV.”

Mom chuckled. “Your dad will choke when he hears the amount.”

“Please don’t let him. If anything happened to Dad at this point I’d die.”

She tugged gently at a lock of my hair. Then, she helped me get the shoes, a pair of strappy heels that I was actually grateful not to have to walk in, buckled on. She smiled up at me from where she knelt at my feet. She looked fabulous in her black slacks and silvery blouse, a replica of Geena Davis with a straighter, darker head of hair. 

“Ready?” she asked. 

I nodded. “I think so.”

My dad drove. The entire way there I felt sick and just wanted to get the whole thing over with; kind of the feeling you get before you have to take an extremely stressful exam, placement test, or qualifier, only on steroids. When we arrived at the funeral home, my dad wheeled me through the ornately decorated, deceptively peaceful hallway to the room in which the viewing was held. As Dad pushed the chair through the group of people already milling around in there, I observed Bruce, standing rigid, head down, hands folded in front of him, not far from the casket. Alfred stood to the opposite end, across the way from him. Bruce wore a very handsome black suit, that he smartly filled out and that accentuated all of his good features. If anyone saw him on the street, and didn’t know who he was, he’d just appear to be that damn good-looking, stupid-rich, worldly man who had absolutely every prize that life had to offer. 

I wished that was the truth for him.

He hadn’t spoken directly to anyone from the League, or even to team members in days. He hadn’t gone into the Wayne Enterprises office. He had ignored the Wayne Foundation. He had withdrawn into the manor, only spoken to the parties that he could not avoid, and taken every system in the Bat Cave offline. I knew he had, after some forceful encouragement, agreed to compose and give the eulogy. I was selfishly glad—so glad—that he agreed to in the end, so that I wouldn’t be asked to. 

Dad braked the chair next to him, and gave him a brief clasp of the shoulder (to which Bruce responded with a silent, detached nod.) He then reached down to hug me from behind.

“You want to go up and see him?” he murmured.

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Okay. Let me know,” Dad said, kissed the crown of my hair, and headed over to sit with my mom. 

Bruce stood stiffly beside me. His entire posture appeared pained, as though perturbed by some unseen, agonizing injury. I tried to think of something to say, but, again, had nothing.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. His voice was hoarse and tired.

I nodded. 

There was a pause.

“So… how have you been holding up?” I asked.

He was quiet, and I decided not to ask him any more questions. Some of Dick’s school friends that I remembered from GA came up, and I got involved in talking with them for a few minutes. When they walked away to approach the casket, Bruce suddenly looked down at me.

“…I still can’t feel it, Barb,” he admitted.

When the surprise of this uncharacteristic confession wore off, I looked up at him, then focused on a splintered mark in one of the prearranged chairs a little ways from me. 

“Really?”

He nodded curtly. 

“You know, Bruce… I think…” I said, trying to formulate the words, “that… sometimes it’s like you’re in so much pain… that you just _stop_ feeling it.”

He was silent for a moment, expressionless; then, he looked down at me. “Emotional shock?”

I nodded. “Yeah. That’s actually a really good term for it. I swear it’s a Thing.”

“If it is…” he said, then sighed. “Then I’ve been in emotional shock since I was eight.”

“Well. It’s okay to open up to it. Feel it. Um. The pain, I mean.”

“We’ll see.”

People trickled in. Leaguers and team members, all in their civilian identities, some with Glamour Charms to hide incriminating features, came, talked, looked, sat. Jack Haly. Some people I hadn't met. Nurse Robin came, and I hugged her extra-long. She handed me a gift card to a spa for a massage, and then sat down. I clutched the card in my sweaty fingers. 

After the exhausting Meet and Greet, when I decided I was finally ready to go up to the casket myself, I had my dad lift me from the Chair of Doom, and with my arm draped over his shoulders and his hold around my waist, he took me there. 

I’ve heard people say that their loved ones have looked quite as though they merely slept in their caskets, and that they might yet wake up at any moment. Dick just looked dead. Even the makeup put on him didn’t completely hide the white lips, the blue mottling around his closed eyes, the hollows of his cheeks. The suit hung off of his skeletal frame like fabric draped over a pile of branches, arranged in a loose facsimile of his shape by some intoxicated artist, and blended in with the satin underneath him. I became doubly aware of, and grateful for, how my dad held me. He braced my weight as I kissed Dick’s cold, flat forehead. 

“Love you more, hero,” I whispered into his ear, then let Dad help me back to my chair.

True to his word, Slade showed up, dapper as ever and looking very much like Sean Connery with a rakish ponytail and eyepatch. Alfred eyed him dangerously as he approached the casket, but he did nothing untoward, simply stood for a moment, rapped his fingers twice on the edge, and then moved to sit in the back row of seats. Rose gave him a look of unspoken gratitude, then sat in the front, with Eddie and Artemis protectively on either side of her. 

I couldn’t bring myself to listen to much of what the priest was saying as he started the viewing service. I just wanted to evaporate, and I had the terrible thought that Wally was lucky. I sat, not listening, not wanting to remember this later, until Bruce’s time came to give the eulogy. 

None of us was sure what to expect. When he stood at the front of the room, everything went vacuum-quiet, the discomfort and uncertainty in the room seemingly a palpable element, worthy of a place on the periodic table. In that extreme silence, I thought that a mouse could have farted and caused a sonic boom, and then it was all I could do not to dissolve into giggles. Why things like that happen at times like these, I will never know. Miraculously, I kept it together.

Bruce produced his tablet, drew his thumb across it, and spoke. Any desire to giggle instantaneously disintegrated.

“In 2006,” he said, his voice terse and clipped, profoundly business-like, “I was granted approval by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families to adopt Richard John Grayson.

“The first thing I did after bringing him home, was give him a copy of my favorite book.

“Then, I got to know him.”

The room remained sonic-boom-mouse-fart silent.

“It was an experience, fostering him,” he continued. “Leave it at this—he was everything that I am not. And that’s good. 

“I am not talented with words. I have a few speeches that I fall back on for certain occasions. But for this, I have nothing. You cannot really communicate grief—you can only feel it. You cannot mash a person’s life into a two-minute spiel—you can only silently remember. 

“To that end, I’d like to read a few things from the bookthat I gave him when he first came to Wayne Manor, Richard Adams’ _Watership Down_. 

“ ‘…Then [Hazel] saw in the darkness of the burrow the stranger’s ears were shining with a faint silver light. “Yes, my Lord,” he said. “I know you.”

“ ‘ “You’ve been feeling tired,” said the stranger, “but I can do something about that. I’ve come to ask whether you’d care to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you and you’ll enjoy it. If you’re ready, we might go along now.”

“ ‘…It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body anymore, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch, but stopped for a moment to watch his rabbits and try to get used to the extraordinary feeling that strength and speed were flowing inexhaustibly out of him into their sleek, young bodies and healthy senses.’

“ ‘ “You needn’t worry about them,” said his companion. “They’ll be all right—and thousands like them. If you’ll come along, I’ll show you what I mean.”

“ ‘He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together, they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.’ ”

There was a pause, punctuated by the loud, sudden sound of sniffle and hiccup. My own eyes burned, and rather like the heart of the Grinch, my throat grew a couple of sizes.

“It was not in Dick’s nature to hear a cry for help and fail to drop everything and answer it immediately. He heard them even when they were silent—like my own. So, instead of thinking that he gave up, and left us,” said Bruce into the now anything but silent room, “I prefer to try to think that maybe, he was needed somewhere else, and was simply called away. In either case… It was his decision, that he made in peace. And his absence is a resounding loss, but his presence here, however short, was an equally resounding gain.” 

Bruce made his way from the podium, and sat down. I looked over at him as Rose, Eddie, and Jaime got up to head to the front, where their instruments waited. Even though my throat had swelled to the size of a grapefruit and my eyes had become wells of barium hydroxide, I just couldn’t seem to let the tears go. 

“Beautiful,” I whispered to him.

“No, it wasn’t,” he replied, his murmured voice empty. “It was bullshit.”

I finally dropped a tear. Then two. Then dozens more, that poured without stopping. My chest jumped. “…I don’t believe that.”

He looked over at me. “Well. Then I’m glad.”

He peered down at his lap, his shoulders hunched and rounded. Alfred, sitting to the opposite side of him, placed a hand on Bruce’s knee. I became aware that the song had begun.

For not wanting to sing, Rose sang beautifully. I would never have known, listening to her, that she had hesitated to perform so badly that she had attempted to get ghost rather than show up. I leaned my head on my dad’s shoulder, and felt my mom’s hand on my arm. I wondered how the others were holding up, but I was in a state of pain that was at least bearable in that position, and feared to move. I stayed like that until the songs were finished, the priest gave the last part of the service, and I reached the decision that I would never again attend a viewing or funeral for as long as I lived—no matter whose it was. 

When the service at last ended (after sadistically playing with my concept of time—I would shift my eyes to check the clock, fully convinced that an hour had gone by, only to discover that the minute hand stubbornly sat in the same spot), Mom wheeled me behind Bruce and Alfred out into the parlor of the funeral home. The other guests followed. I was really ready to go home at about that time, and wondered if I could bow gracefully out of the burial. I remembered Dick trying to precipitately duck out of Wally’s memorial.

That he was sick at the time, and I didn’t know, and I didn’t try harder to make heads or tails of his bizarre behavior the weeks prior, left me slumped in my chair.

“You okay, sweetie?” Mom asked under her breath, leaning down. 

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. Then, with a sigh, I muttered, equally truthful, “I kind of wonder if I’ll ever be okay again. Which… might or might not be a stupid thing to say.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “It isn’t.”

The burial took place an hour after the viewing service. It was blistering hot again, brutally, cruelly sunny through the patchwork of clouds piled heavy in a sickly, jaundiced haze overhead. As the priest yammered on and on in the equatorial weather, I saw a woman with a gorgeous head of dark curls that rivaled even Zatanna’s enviable hair step up, right next to Bruce. She wore a black silk dress partnered with a tiered choker of black and white pearls. The whole ensemble probably cost more than the entire funeral. I pursed my lips a little, thinking this must be the infamous Talia al Ghul—of whom I had heard much but seen nothing. 

Bruce looked over at her, and she wordlessly slipped her arm through his. Then, it happened.

He dropped his head, and his shoulders bowed and shook. 

At that point, everyone that had managed to keep their shit together totally lost it. 

Bruce, who we— _all_ of us—swore never cried, and had never cried a day in his life but rather made tears cry in fear, finally wept, unceasing, in front of all of us. He didn’t bawl, or sob, or anything of the like, but he cried. Talia stood to his side, and Alfred to his other, and Clark to his back, and he cried. 

I resolutely kept my eyes trained on the stupid spray of flowers on top of the dumb, ugly casket. The image blurred. My armpits, in spite of the anti-perspirant, were sweating madly in the heat. I missed the boy short haircut, as my hair was hot and sticky on the back of my neck. My arms itched and my back tingled.

The last prayer was finally— _finally—_ spoken, and we performed the required dirt chuck into the open grave as the casket was lowered. I lobbed my bit, and before my mom could even grab the handles of my chair, I had whipped the thing around and was wheeling wildly back toward the car, away from the sizzlingly sunny, falsely pretty family plot, away from the unsightly casket with its purposeless plume of flowers, away from the grating, stomach-turning sound of people weeping, and mostly, away from Bruce’s frightening, aberrant exhibition. Everything I had seen in my life, and _that_ terrified me the most.

My parents caught up to me, and without a word, and with no argument, took me home.

Once I made it to the safety of my room, I sat with Foxy by my window, slowly letting the events of the last few weeks settle into a semblance of flatness. The days of switching oxygen tanks, cleaning puke out of emissions buckets, organizing rainbows of pills, changing wrecked, soiled sheets the best I could from my chair, wearing body fluids that weren’t mine, and, mostly, of _waiting,_ were over. Even so, I still woke up each morning, waiting, and then the pain would scream in my ears until I closed my hands over them at remembering that there _was_ no more waiting.

After the funeral, I lay in bed for days. I stalwartly remained there, until I could no longer put off dealing with Dick’s apartment. When my mom at last dragged me forcibly out of bed, stuck me in the chair, and told me it was time to take care of business, my dad and I went to Bludhaven together, and I sorted while he packed and cleaned. I told Dad that he could do whatever he felt like doing with Dick’s stuff—store it, hock it, donate it, whatever. I kept the box of his treasured things for myself. 

After finishing up with the apartment, I decided, while I was still up and about, to finally try looking in on Bruce. We Zeta’ed back to Gotham, and headed to the manor. I told Dad to wait for me at the car, and wheeled to the door.

Alfred greeted me, his eyes red-rimmed, glazed, and stark in his pale face. Wrinkles that had to have been there, unnoticed, for years suddenly materialized, and aged him in seconds before my gaze. 

“Ah. Miss Barbara,” he said, smiling wanly. His voice was atypically quiet, creaky, pinched-sounding. It had an unusual quality of long disuse. “How are you this afternoon?”

“I’m… trying,” I said, forcing a smile in return as he brought me inside. “How are you?”

“Moving a little slower than usual, I am afraid,” he said, still quiet. “As is Master Bruce.”

I nodded, staring at my lap. “Is he um… Is he here? Can I see him?”

“Of course, Miss Barbara,” said Alfred. “He is down below. You are welcome to seek him there.”

I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

I watched as he walked slowly away, his shoulders drooping, his gait limping. I wondered if he had always hunched and limped a bit, and I was only just beginning to notice. 

I found Bruce in the Bat Cave, picking up the aftermath of what I swore was a freaking ICBM that had detonated inside it. 

“Hey,” I said, unable even to really navigate my chair over the wreckage. Some of it looked as though it had been cleaned up, but for the most part, it resembled a screencap from _Fallout._ “Um… What happened here?”

“I did.”

I ogled him. “ _You_ did this?”

“Yes.”

“When? How? You set off dynamite or bomb a chemistry experiment or something?”

He straightened, and I observed the series of bandages on his forearms. His hands were bruised with old marks and marred with dark, scabbed-over cuts, ones I had seen, but overlooked at the funeral. His face was dark with a thick growth of stubble, and his hair was tousled and unruly. 

“Just after,” he said. “And… I would say my bare hands were sufficient.” 

I sat in silence for a moment, all but gawping at the wreckage. I was well aware that Bruce was incredibly strong, especially for being a non-super, but this was borderline hallucinatory. If I were to like a culprit for imparting this much destruction, I’d have favored Black Beetle at the weakest. 

The main computer, set into the wall, was now a gaping, shattered hole, jagged with broken, splintered shards of substrate. Bits of glass lay strewn across the ground, melding with the scraps of rent plastic, polarized material, metal, fabric, wood, rock. Tools were scattered, bent and broken, across the whole scene.

“…Can I help you clean up?” I asked.

“If you want.”

I set to, and started hauling pieces of busted plastic into trash bags. 

“I’m through with the Batman,” said Bruce, straightening, and dropping an armload of shattered computer parts into a standing bin. 

I stalled in the process of lifting a particularly heavy sheet of carbon fiber, and in my moment of pause, the piece clattered loudly to the floor.

“What?”

“It’s time,” he stated, continuing in his task.

“Bruce, don’t,” I said. “If Dick found out you quit—”

“I’d remind him that I didn’t stop him from withdrawing from the team at one time,” he interrupted, “and what he would say or do were he to find out at this point is completely irrelevant, anyway.”

“Okay, but… Now is _not_ the time to quit, Bruce.”

“I should have quit after Jason died. And you and Dick should have followed suit.” 

“No, we shouldn’t have. Listen, the world needed us. Still needs us. And it _needs_ the Batman. So Darkseid’s gone, but who’s next? It seems like our enemies just keep gaining XP and leveling up with each defeat, so where will the League—or the team—be if you’re AWOL the next round?”

He shrugged. “Not my concern anymore.”

“Bruce. Come on. You can’t tell me that…” I paused, then waved at the destruction in the cave. “Just. You can’t.”

“Barbara,” he said, “it’s over, okay?”

“Please don’t quit.”

He looked straight at me, and I saw the deep, roving pain in his eyes, circling and shifting like a trapped animal.

“I want the deaths to stop,” he said. 

“Bruce,” I said, “we _all_ do. This has been hard on all of us…”

He stood for a moment, then went back to cleaning. “I’m done, Barb.”

I sat in silence, watching him as he worked. Then, grabbing his arm as he walked past my chair, I halted his movement, and gave him an insistent pull. Before I even thought the action through, I encircled his solid waist with my arms, and squeezed. 

He surprised me when he, without hesitation, hugged me right back. I pressed the side of my face into his chest; broad, warm, strong, healthy. It was a dramatic change from Dick’s flat, bony, narrow upper body. It occurred to me that Tim officially owed me fifty bucks. Bruce did, in fact, give hugs. 

It felt good, holding him. Being held by him. I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. 

“I really can’t talk you out of this?” I asked, not letting go of him.

I felt him shake his head. “Sorry.”

“Have you told the League yet?”

“I’ve written a letter of resignation, and turned it in. I haven’t received a response.”

I pulled away, and tried to wrap my head around the idea of a world without the Batman.

Stephen came to see me after I returned home that same evening. I greeted him guiltily at the door, where he stood with a bouquet of sympathy flowers. I ruefully accepted the gift, and felt much more deserving of some reproach, for having strung him along the way that I did, and also for ignoring his calls and texts after Dick died. I told him as much. Stephen, though, thankfully, was really a kind man—and was gracious, understanding, and sweet about the whole thing. I never expected to find forgiveness, or comfort, in my ex-boyfriend/rebound guy, but when he went home for the night after we talked for a few hours, I found I was in a much better humor, and even in the mood, for the first time in weeks, to willingly come out of my room. I played Scrabble with my parents.

Time passed. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. I turned down all of Dinah’s offers to talk, which might not have been the greatest idea, but accepting help has never really been one of my strong suits. Malcolm and Karen’s wedding came and went. I made my failed efforts to find this Damian person. I finally talked to the insurance company, and smiled a little when I learned that half of what Dick was worth he had donated to fund research for things like cystic fibrosis, Diamond-Blackfan anemia, Parkinsons, and the like, atop all sorts of other charitable things. Some of it furtively went to the League and team. The rest I inherited, and I realized that I had no clue what to do with it. I didn’t really want it, frankly. Too many reminders. I figured I’d donate most of it over time. 

Tim and I took bets against each other regarding when Batman would return to duty. Tim gave it six months, I gave it a year. Tim won—Bruce was back on duty within four months of quitting, when new threats in the form of the Black Lanterns came to the earth. I marked the occasion on our bet sheet with a glittery Batman symbol, paid Tim the requisite twenty dollars, and reminded him that he still owed me fifty. 

Months folded beneath the advent of years. Star Labs produced and administered a treatment that healed the injury to my spine and restored my mobility—paid for, and made possible, by Bruce (of course.) Bette Kane had taken on the mantle of Batgirl maybe a year or so after Dick passed (as I sat and seethed jealously in my chair), but upon learning that I was healing, she happily shrugged it and returned to a civilian life with great readiness. Thankful that Bette was so willing to throw in the towel, I rushed back to duty as Batgirl as quickly as I humanly could after the months of physical therapy were wrapped up, and not a moment too soon—it seemed that seconds later, Jason returned. That’s an entirely different story, that I ought to save for another day.

Years of Batgirl. Years of the team and League. Years without Nightwing. Years of business as usual. Years of declining lovers, except for the intermittent tryst here and there with trusted friends, when the loneliness of being without Dick really hit. Years of mourning, but not really properly grieving; waking up sometimes, still waiting, until the pain came.

And then, this evening happened, and left me turning Dick’s letter over and over in my hands.

 _Damian_.

It’s been ten years, one month, and eighteen days since Dick passed.

Out on patrol on my own earlier, I sat atop the cathedral, where I listened to the radio feed through my earpiece. As I looked out over the lights of the city, keeping an eye on the bustle down below, I got a call from Rose.

“What’s up, Ravager?” I asked, rising up on one knee.

“Okay,” she said. “Keep this hush-hush. I need more hard info. But apparently Dad’s on the rampage—as in _very seriously_ on the rampage. He’s been planning a hostile takeover against the League of Assassins.”

“Uh, baking powder?” I said. “The League of Assassins?”

“Yep. Which essentially means offing R’as al Ghul and assuming his role in things.”

“Wow. Dream big.”

“You know it. That’s always been Dad’s way. Anyhow, I caught wind of this a couple of days ago, and he doesn’t know I’m onto him—I’d keep all your eyes and ears out. There have been reports of explosions and avalanches within a close radius of the reported location of the League’s stronghold, and Ubu’s been spotted in Gotham.”

“Roger that,” I said. “Consider these eyes and ears open.”

“I’m actually in town with the boys to give a concert,” said Rose, “but consider us on-call. Don’t hesitate to give us a shout if things come up.” 

“Appreciate it,” I said. “So… Speaking of the boys. Annnnd things coming up. How’s Red Devil?”

There was a pause.

“Fine,” Rose said starchily.

I felt a smile coming on. “Oh, yeah? Bit of a devil in the sack?”

“…I admit nothing.”

“How does it feel to be the first person stricken from the We Ain’t Got No Boyfriends Club?” 

“Not stricken yet,” said Rose. “Like I said, I admit nothing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“…Shut the hell up. Listen. I’m on in twenty and I still have to do makeup. Keep us posted.”

I grinned. “Will do. Thanks for the info, Ravager.” 

“No problem. ’Bye, love.”

I crouched for a time, listening to the feed, and utilizing Bruce’s “Bat-Eyes” tech to probe areas of the city that were out of view. Nothing serious happened for a while—at least, nothing that the cops couldn’t handle. I didn’t get any reports of suspicious behavior that might have suggested Ubu’s presence in the city. 

I was just beginning to think that I was in dire need of a coffee (which I've taken to drinking in recent years, just laden with sugar and cream, which makes Bruce the Eternal Purist cringe) and donut break and a good, full-body stretch when movement on the street below caught my eye, and I spied the bulky form of a large man as he sprinted across the sidewalk beneath where I crouched. I lowered the visor on the mask and brought up the magnifier. The man was Ubu.

Running, apparently, from a smaller, cloaked figure.

Generally, if Ubu is running, it can’t be a good sign.

This little, hooded figure, I thought, must have been dangerous, then. 

_Time to work._ I launched to the ground below by grappling hook, and although the chase the smaller figure gave was quick, I followed, careful not to alert the individual to my presence.

On a deserted corner awash in the glow of a sputtering, failing street lamp, a fight broke out between Ubu and this newcomer, and I crouched down out of sight. I had to appraise the situation and wait for the right opportunity to get involved. Folks like Ubu have a tendency to make enemies, the majority of whom are plenty dangerous and generally bigger and badder than the next, but I couldn’t sit back and let one kill the other, even so. It wouldn’t hurt to lock up Ubu, in any case, or this hooded new person.

I was about to leap to it and get down to business, but I halted and crouched back down when Ubu, grabbing a fistful of his pursuer’s cloak, yanked it away to reveal a child.

I stared in surprise—the kid was barely nine or ten, and swinging an enormous broadsword with ease, and quite as though he had every mind and intention to _kill_ with it. Even from where I hid, I could see the blaze of rage and madness in the boy’s eyes. Ubu was down, his nose flattened and broken, his jaw dangling like a basket of teeth from his ear. As the child lifted the sword over his head, I sprinted out from where I crouched, let fly a batarang, and knocked the blade right out of his hand. Before the blade hit the ground, I gave him a solid Muay-Thai front kick to the left rounding of the chest cavity, sending him sprawling to his side on the pavement. 

The kid rose, his eyes burning with the same murderous fury, now amplified as he trained that unhinged gaze on me. He snarled, and bodily hurled himself in my direction. The next thing I knew, I was working to defend myself from a flurry of blades, fists, knees, heels, elbows, teeth—you name it. At first it was all I could do to twist away from the series of blade-swipes and thrusts before I could finally disarm him of his daggers. I sustained a number of cuts, some minor, some not-so-minor, even through the armored suit. For being a kid, he had some impressive skills—but then again, Dick wasn’t any older than this kid when he started up as Robin. 

My opponent reached up and grabbed my hair (grown long again, and tied in a herringbone plait that trailed down my back), using it to attempt hauling me to the ground. Even the dirtiest fighters I’d encountered hadn’t copped _that_ crap on me. I dropped a handful of flash grenades, then spun into a series of “Blue Chip” moves, as Dick would have called them, and finally got the boy wrapped up in a pair of bolas. 

It took me a second as I caught my breath (that kid had given me a better workout in two minutes than the entirety of the Light had given me in two years) to register that he was saying something.

“Where is Bruce Wayne, you harpy?” he hissed. “I demand to speak to him. _Now.”_

I had half a mind to gag him while I was at it. Harpy? Really? 

“What do you want him for?” I asked evenly, stringing him up a little tighter in his bonds.

“He is my _father_ ,” he snapped, “and he will _not_ be pleased when he sees how you have treated me just now!”

I pursed my lips and nodded, as though sympathetic. “Sure, kid…”

“Ask him yourself.”

“I’ll do that,” I said in bored tones, then brought up the code to reach Batman’s communicator via the headpiece.

“What is it?” came Bruce’s voice. 

“Well, you’ve been keeping a pretty epic secret,” I hissed. “Just nabbed your _kid_ , here, apparently. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

There was silence on the other end.

Then, a tired, aggravated, done-with-this-crap, “Just give me a second.”

Floored, I clicked headpiece, and stared at the bound kid.

He _did_ look like Bruce, upon closer study. Same nose, same brow, same hair, same jaw. The lips and eyes were a little different—the lips fuller, more petulant; the eyes a light, seafoam green. There was something familiar in those features; although what, I couldn’t say. I registered pain in my upper arm and chest. Ubu, I realized, was a lot worse off than I was, though.

I called for an ambulance, raised my dad, who was on duty, and waited for Bruce to show up.

He lit beside me in a loud flap of cape a few minutes later, and, with a glance at the bound child, stood in front of me. He loomed like a black-cowled skyscraper. He wasn’t happy.

“Take Damian back to the Bat Cave,” he said. “I’ll finish up here.”

At this name-drop, I completely lost hold of my jaw, felt that my stomach had suddenly sprouted legs and started sprinting in circles, and that I was caught in an exaggerated, “close-far, close-far” film loop. 

“Wait— _what?”_ I snapped.

“Take. Damian. Back. To the Bat Cave,” he repeated.

“Damian?”

“Yes,” said Bruce. “My son. Damian.”

I stared at the kid. _No. Coincidence. It has to be._

“What is it?” asked Bruce. 

“Uh—nothing,” I said. “Forget it.”

I got it together, calmed myself with an inhaled breath, and set to untying Damian.

Some time later, I sat in my black cami in the Bat Cave as Alfred pressed a cotton towel hard against the bleeding gash in my left shoulder, just under my collarbone. Damian leaned languidly against the railing cordoning off the computers. He had gone straight for my heart, but, obviously, missed. I glared at him, and found myself wishing that Dick was there. He was like the Troubled Kid Whisperer. I had a tendency to be a little crabbier with problem children. And Tim, frankly, had even less patience than I did. Those two meeting, I figured, would prove interesting. 

I turned to Alfred.

“So… Bruce never bothered to tell any of us that Talia just showed up a few days ago half-cocked with some kid that she’s claiming is his?” I said incredulously. 

“Indeed,” said Alfred. 

“Unbelievable,” I said.

“Agreed, miss,” he said. 

“None of these suits is yours,” Damian observed from where he had moved to the walkway showcasing the uniforms in storage. He paused at Dick’s suits; both the Nightwing, and the original Robin suits. Tim’s old uniform hung next to it. 

“Obviously,” I said.

“What suit is this one?” he asked, appraising Dick’s earliest suit. 

“It’s none of your business what suit that is,” I said.

“Is that so…” said Damian, giving me a fiendish half-smile. He eyed the Nightwing suit. “What’s this, the dress your fairy godmother wore?”

I left Alfred, approached Damian, and crossed my arms. The cuts hurt and I wasn’t in the mood for goading. “Uniforms.”

“Do they belong to the infamous Richard of whom Mother spoke?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “they do.”

“Father won’t speak of him,” Damian said. 

“I’m not surprised.”

“Of course not,” he said. “He was a whining child who took sick and succumbed to the death of cowards and weaklings.”

I snapped. I jerked my hand out and grabbed the kid’s ear. When he moved to defend himself, I released him. I’m damn talented at grappling, and when he continued to fight by going for one, I had him on the floor in seconds. I chuckled nastily when this clearly pissed him off. Alfred barked a cease and desist order, and like an unruly, but obedient child, I let Damian up, then instantly twisted an arm behind his back when he moved to attack me again. 

“You listen to me, you puffed-up little shit,” I hissed in his ear. “That ‘whining child’ was _twice_ the man you are at half your age. And you have _no_ idea what he suffered. So you say one word about Richard, and I’ll forget all about how nice your father’s been to me. You’ll wish you’d never come crawling out of Talia. Capisce?”

“I’ve half a mind to take your head off, tramp,” he snapped right back. “There is _none_ who speaks to me this way—least of all some buxom simpleton who’s barely worthy of calling herself the protégé of an insect, let alone my father.”

This kid was something else. I was about to continue to give him what-for, when, suddenly, in the back of my mind—

_Please be good, little bro._

I held my tongue, shoved him roughly aside, and returned to sit with Alfred. I glared at the kid from my seat.

“Not. A damn. Word,” I told him. 

Damian leaned imperiously against the railing, and crossed his arms. 

Bruce positively burst into the Bat Cave with a spectacular entrance, and raged at Damian for his behavior while I sat there, receiving stitches and triumphantly enjoying the show. For as much as I wickedly delighted in watching Damian get a good dressing-down, I wished Bruce and Alfred both would wrap things up a bit faster—I needed to talk to Bruce about Dick’s last letter. 

Bruce finally sent Damian off, then pulled the mask away from his face. I drew him aside, and made sure that the kid was officially out of the cave before I spoke.

“Hey. I need to talk to you real quick,” I said.

“If it’s about Damian,” he said, “it was a surprise to me, as well. He’s been here for—”

I waved a hand and shook my head. “No, no, it’s not that. Well, I mean, it _is_ about Damian, but not in the way you think.”

He crossed his arms and inclined his head, a cue to continue.

“…A couple of days before he died, Dick gave me a letter addressed to _Damian,”_ I said. “Bruce. This was ten years ago. How old is your son?”

“Nine,” said Bruce, his lips set in a thin, stretched line. 

“I tried asking him about it. I couldn’t get any answers, though. But… If I’m doing the math right, Talia either… wasn’t pregnant at all, or was barely pregnant when that letter was written. But you said this kid was a surprise to you, too?”

He nodded. “I had no idea until a few days ago.”

I rubbed my temples. “It _has_ to be a coincidence…”

Bruce had an unreadable look on his face. “I’m not so sure, Barb.”

“Why do you say that?”

He sighed, and was quiet for a moment.

“Before Dick passed away,” he said, “I was doing some research on an alternative, that might have cured him.”

I stared at him, an odd, turning feeling reassembling my stomach. “What was it? Why wasn’t it used?”

“He told me to leave it alone,” said Bruce. “So, I respected that.”

“Bruce, _why?_ ” I said incredulously.

He held up a hand. “Listen, Babs. This is going to sound strange, so be ready for it.”

I waited as he stood, deliberating.

“Look,” he said, “all other options were exhausted. I couldn’t accept the outcome. So… I considered approaching the Sidhe for help.”

My stare turned to a gawk. “The Sidhe? Like… Queen Oona?”

“Deceased. Her daughters, Titania and Mab.”

“…You’ve never been a real big joker,” I said, “but I have to admit. I’m kind of having trouble playing catch-up with this one.”

“Well, it only gets more bizarre,” he told me. “I’ve put it out of my mind until now, but apparently, I can’t keep ignoring what Dick said.”

“What did he say?”

“That if I went to the Sidhe, and made the bargain like I planned, the world would be thrown out of balance and meet a global catastrophe like none other,” said Bruce. “And that he knew this, because he’d _seen_ it. Then, so he told me, he asked Titania—the Sidhe High Queen—to project his consciousness back in time to prevent me from making the bargain with her sister, Mab. Thereby, circumventing this alleged disaster.”

I was silent as this sank in. 

_We never spoke, but I hear you. We never met, but I know you. You never knew me, but I love you._

_Please be good, little bro._

“…Wow,” I said.

Bruce nodded. “I know how strange it all sounds. I thought it was the morphine talking, myself. You know, that he’d had nightmares on it, and couldn’t tell they weren’t real. But… He was so insistent. …I decided to take his word for it. I hope you understand.”

“I do,” I assured him. “On a different note, though… I can’t believe Talia just showed up here with a kid she says is yours.”

“I can,” said Bruce. “Doesn’t make me any less angry that she hid him from me.”

I nodded. “No kidding. …Sorry things got a little out of hand earlier.”

Bruce shook his head. “Well, I think you and I can agree that my son is in need of a few lessons in humility. Honestly, I feel you’re a good candidate for that job. And the rest of the team, as well, once he’s had a crash course in discipline from his old man.”

“I’m a terrible candidate,” I said. “Dick would have been so much better for this.”

“You are just as qualified,” he assured me. “Don’t shortchange yourself. A little strong-arming isn’t going to do Damian much harm, anyway. Pretty sure even Dick would have lost his temper at least once with him.” He looked back at the main screen. “For now, I need to definitively confirm the connection between Ubu and Deathstroke. Talia was vague at best about either's role in things. In the meantime—”

“I can help with that,” I told him. “Rose called earlier and said her father means to take over the League of Assassins. Which means removing R’as al Ghul from the picture. I’d check Ubu’s loyalties.”

“He was always easily swayed by money,” he said. “So he's without any doubt our traitor. Good work. Both of you.”

“Speaking of Ubu—how is he?”

“Still recovering in the ICU,” said Bruce. “Serious condition. Might be a while before we can get anything out of him.”

“Damian did a pretty good number on him…”

“He did. Which brings me back to what I brought up earlier. Eventually, when he’s ready, I’d like to see the team work with him a bit. Teach him some respect, humility, teamwork, humanity. Dick would have been his adoptive brother, which would have made you something of a sister to Damian. Apart from the other things we’ve discussed, I feel Damian could use having an older sister around, and a brother in Tim, as well.”

“And a father,” I pointed out.

He nodded. “There’s good in him, Babs, somewhere. We’ll just have to work to bring it out.” 

I smiled. “I’ll do my best. And, Bruce…”

“Hmm.”

“Of course there’s good in Damian. He’s yours, isn’t he?”

Bruce gave me one of his unusual smiles. 

I left him, unsuited in a changing room, and headed back to my apartment in the city. 

I’ve sat up all night since I got home. Foxy’s curled up on my lap, purring. Per the norm, when she’s there, I have a hard time bringing myself to disturb her by getting up. It’s only gotten worse since she joined the ranks of senior cats. 

I’ve read, and re-read, Dick’s letter to Damian at least ten times, thinking to myself that quantum physics have to be less convoluted than all of this. While a part of me wishes that Bruce had gone through with making this supposed bargain with the Sidhe, and that same part of me feels a little like Dick up and left all of us if that story is true, the much bigger part of me knows better. I don’t think I ever saw Dick fail to at least try to take the best care in making decisions involving the job. Obviously, I’ll just have to trust him. 

Still, I want the story. The _whole_ story, and not just pieces and hints of it.

I send Zatanna a message. Then, I place Damian’s letter, in its envelope, into the front pouch of my messenger bag. 

Reaching into the box of treasures, I pull out the stack of photographs, and flip through them for the nth time. I have my favorites among these pictures—there’s one of his mother, holding Dick in his infancy as he screams his head off, while his mom, boosting him on her lap, makes a comically distressed expression. On the back is scribbled the inscription: _“Super mean murkin’ faces—1-4-97.”_ Even making silly faces, his mom was breathtaking—undeniably the parent Dick got his looks from. (Granted, it’s not like his dad was bad-looking, but he was definitely not on Mary’s level. I have a feeling that she was the bigger part of the reason that Haly’s Circus suddenly got so popular in the 1990’s.) There’s one of his mother and father on their wedding day, smashing cake into each other’s faces. Some more of them as a pre-baby couple. Always playful together. I smile—figures they’d be total goofballs. There are some of Dick as a kid—run-of-the-mill Christmas and birthday photos, as well as circus photos, school pictures. A couple of hard copy photos of Wally, the team, Zatanna, Rose, me.

And, my absolute favorite. I’ve kept copies of it on my computer, but to find it going through this box after I first brought it home left me a big, puddled mess of melted heart matter. Shortly after Dick and I first started officially dating, M’gann and I conspired together to cheer him up a little after Wally vanished. Both of us were disconcerted by his uncharacteristically dark and solitary demeanor in the wake of the event, so we got a picnic packed up, nabbed Connor, and dragged Dick out of his apartment for the afternoon. It was an absolutely gorgeous, early fall day. Dick lightened up fast, as he always did, and eventually was mostly back to his old, jovial self. We wound up gamboling a bit, kind of joke-tussling, and he yanked me across his shoulders and spun me around as I feigned the normal reactions of a damsel-in-distress. M’gann had said, “Hey… Smile, you guys,” and when he paused and turned, I grinned, and she took the photo that I now hold in my hand—me, stretched across Dick’s broad shoulders, my hair blending in with the autumn foliage behind us, and my smile huge on my face. Dick’s eyes are focused on me, his stance firm, straight, healthy. I run my finger over the image of him. He would die less than a year after that photo was taken. And now, just past the ten-year mark, I still sometimes wake up, waiting, until the pain silences the anticipation.

It’s just after six in the morning, now. Time to deal with his unfinished business. I stand, run a brush through my hair, and lift my bag, which still has the copy of _Gone with the Wind_ that Dick got for me all those years ago inside it. I then pull the toadstool mittens over my hands to protect my fingers from the chill of the fall morning, draw my coat across my shoulders, give Foxy a rub good-bye, and Zeta to the Bat Cave, without calling.

Bruce, still up, still working, turns as I enter. 

“You’re up early,” he observes, then takes a pull of his coffee. 

“You’re up late,” I return.

“Touche,” says Bruce. “What brings you here?”

“Things to do,” I state. “Damian things. Mind if I head up to the manor?”

“Not at all,” he says, and goes back to work. “Just promise you’ll try to keep things on an even keel up top. There are a lot of valuable things on display.”

“I think I can manage that,” I tell him, and head up the lift and into the library. 

I encounter Alfred in the hall after a few moments’ wandering. 

“Ah, Miss Barbara,” he says. “Still here?”

“Came back,” I explain. “Is His Highness up?”

“Yes, I expect so,” says Alfred. “He is still growing accustomed to our… peasant’s quarters.”

I can’t help but smile. “Well, I have something I need to give him.”

“Very well. Why not have a seat in the parlor and I will send him along to meet you there?”

I nod. “All right. Thanks, Alfred.”

“Of course, Miss. Care for coffee?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say with emphasis. “If you don’t mind, please.”

I head through the halls, down the steps, through some more halls, down some more steps, and finally into the parlor, where I sit, and wait. I draw the copy of _Gone with the Wind_ from my bag, and read for a few minutes. I hear my personal cell as it buzzes in my bag, and I pull it out to check the screen. A message, from Zatanna. 

Damian enters with Alfred, who places a cup of coffee on the endtable. He gives me a humorous, bolstering expression, to which I respond with a grin, and he exits the room.

“Well,” says Damian. “Have you returned to beg forgiveness? To grovel? To redeem more analgesics?” 

I give him a sincere smile, which makes his brows lower. 

“Actually,” I tell him, “I have something for you.”

He makes a face. “What could you possibly provide that would be of any interest to me?”

I reach into my bag, and extend to him Dick’s letter.

“This,” I tell him.

Frowning, he opens the envelope, unfolds the sheet, and reads. He lifts a brow, and glares at me. 

“I do not take kindly to pranks, harlot,” he says, crossing his arms. 

“Not a prank,” I assure him. “I swear on your late grandfather Wayne’s grave.”

“Who was it that wrote me this letter, and what in all of the circles of Alighieri’s Hell was he trying to say?”

“Listen,” I say cordially. “You and I got off on the wrong foot. Even if we disagree on how to go about doing things, you’re still Bruce’s son, and Richard’s younger brother—if not by blood, by honor. So for now, let’s call that letter a peace offering.”

Damian’s upper lip curls. “This… ‘Dick’ is a nickname for Richard?”

I nod. “I’ve kept that letter for ten years, wondering at the person it was addressed to… Imagine my surprise when I discovered _you_ last night.”

“Let me ask you something, then,” he says. “If famous Richard, or Dick, died ten years ago, and I haven’t even reached my tenth year, how am I truly to believe that he wrote this letter with me in mind?”

“Damian. Do you really want to know how that letter came to be?”

He scowls. “It piques the curiosity, nothing more.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a long story,” I say. “And if you’re curious enough, one you’re going to have to earn. Think you can do that?”

He narrows his eyes. “All things worth having ought to be taken, by force if necessary. Shall I force the story from you?”

I smile calmly. “Shall you try?”

He gives me a sullen look. “If our bout last night exhibits one thing, it is that I have surpassed your amateur levels of skill.”

“If memory serves,” I say evenly, “I handed your ass to you last night. But frankly, I’d rather not fight again.”

Damian uncrosses his arms. “What’s your idea of earning this story?”

I stand. “Tell you what. We’ll work together for a while, under your dad, and with each bit of progress I feel you’ve made, I’ll give you a bit of the story. One piece at a time.”

He’s silent for a moment, then says, “Very well. Deal.”

“Good. For now, though… How about one more white flag? Training, then…” I suddenly remember something that Dick said. “Milkshakes?”

He snorts. “Mother never permitted me such poison.”

I lift a brow. “Then your mother seriously gypped you out of a childhood. It’s hardly poison if it’s good for the soul.”

“Bodies are temples, and vehicles of the will. We ought to care for them as such.”

“And the will is usually stronger when the mind is happy. Duh,” I say. “Come on. You’re not with Psycho-Mom anymore. You need to broaden your horizons.”

I turn to lead him to the cave, and he follows, his face set in a surly expression.

“The very sight of you makes me physically ill,” he says.

“Such a shame,” I tell him, “because _I_ think you’re adorable.”

He bares his teeth at me, but there’s no quip from him. Excellent. One step closer to receiving part of the story. 

It occurs to me, though, that I don’t even have the full story myself. At least, not yet, and my heart begins to pound with some anticipation when I recall Zatanna’s message.

 _One thing at a time, Babs,_ I remind myself. _Focus on Damian for now. Then, worry about the rest of the story. Tomorrow._

In the cave, we separate, suit up, and reconvene. Damian, standing across the mat from me, glares in silence.

“Okay,” I tell him, assuming an offensive stance, “let’s get started. Good behavior, more parts of the story.”

“We’ll see,” he says, and with that, comes at me in a rush.

Today, I train with Damian.

Tomorrow, Zatanna and I set out to seek the tale in its entirety from the High Queen of the Sidhe.

And, maybe, ten years later, I can finally stop waking up waiting.


End file.
